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That statement is incorrect. The payment was made in bitcoin to a wallet on binance: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/vastaamo-hacker-traced-via-u

That statement is incorrect. The payment was made in bitcoin to a wallet on binance: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/vastaamo-hacker-traced-via-untraceable-monero-transactions-police-says/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/vastaamo-hack... Inside binance the attacker converted the money to monero and from there the trail was lost but they already had enough personal info from binance to inspect his personal bank accounts. In summary, Monero remains untraceable. Even more now that the goverments forced binance to remove monero support. Now attackers will use centralized exchange sites where no western authorities can ask for help or simply use decentralized P2P exchanges.

nabla9 2y ago
Statement is correct. Monero remains technically untraceable, not in practice. Money must go in and out to be useful and it can be traced. They payment was made into bitcoin address, then transferred into Monero, then it was sent into another Monero wallet. After that they used statistical analysis to determine the most likely receiver. All sections of the additional investigation report where KRP discloses its methods have been retracted. Details about the analysis of Monero traffic are not revealed.
- Tiberium 2y ago
  "Money must go in and out to be useful and it can be traced." - not if you pay directly in Monero.
  - nabla9 2y ago
    When people start paying their toilet paper with Monero that becomes an issue.
    - jamil7 2y ago
      Are you arguing that the attacker would have to eventually exchange XMR for something they could purchase goods with, like toilet paper? Because I think that's shifting the original argument a little. The point being made is that had they had the victim(s) buy XMR on an exchange and send it directly to their XMR wallet and maybe cycle it through a few wallets, it would not have been traceable, which still holds true. How the attacker would actually use that money is a separate discussion. I've never looked into it but I'd guess there are illegal/grey services that would provide this service for a fee.
      - futuramaconarma 2y ago
        A few sites you can buy $500+ gift cards with them for low fee
      - nabla9 2y ago
        original argument: In this instance police was able to trace Modero payment trough with statistical analysis. Monero is technically safe, not necessarily in practice. >and maybe cycle it through a few wallets, Your argument: Monero + extra protocol is safe. The general pattern of these arguments: Argument: Technology X is not necessarily 100% safe. Counterargument: there exist way to use technology safely so it is.
        nunobrito 2y ago
        Cycling through a few wallets is unnecessary, that is mostly applicable to bitcoin users trying to make their transactions harder to follow. In monero there is privacy on each transaction. Of course it isn't complicated to match public transactions if you transfer 100k EUR from binance to monero and then magically 99k EUR are credited into your personal bank account within 1~2 days. Finland is a small country, deposits from bank accounts related to crypto exchanges are easy to find. Not even monero could save a person with such awful practices.
        jamil7 2y ago
        You may or may not be correct that Monero is not untraceable but this example doesn't prove or disprove anything because the transaction wasn't entirely in Monero. Your argument seems to be about the traceability of the whole extortion process rather than the tech, which I think everyone agrees leaves a lot of room for error.
    - nunobrito 2y ago
      If the person would have made 2~3 payments to his account with different values or waited a year, binance records wouldn't look so suspicious. In fact, why the heck was that dumb guy even using binance to begin with. Anyways, you can pay toilet paper with monero quite OK. Just convert some value into a government-approved currency like bitcoin or BNB and buy stuff with a mastercard at grocery stores.
    - zigararu 2y ago
      Easily possible, here for example: https://shopinbit.com/Toilet-Roll-Seda-PH-Neutro-Foxy-6-uds/23-S7908615 https://shopinbit.com/Toilet-Roll-Seda-PH-Neutro-Foxy-6-uds/...
- nunobrito 2y ago
  Fortunately it was an incredibly inexperienced criminal. There are details about the Monero analysis, it is written on the report they lost track of the money when it got sent to a monero wallet. How it was guessed: "KRP claims that by employing heuristic analysis involving educated guesses based on patterns and probabilities, they could infer the most likely path of the funds. The small amount, together with other funds, possibly from victim payments, was sent to a second Bitcoin address linked to the same email address, which was later found to be linked to an email server managed by Kivimäki." There isn't much magic here. In a small country is fairly easy to spot anomalies across bank accounts. That's it.
- ruthmarx 2y ago
  > Statement is correct. No, it wasn't, and please admit that. You claimed law enforcement traced the attacker through Monero. They didn't. They couldn't. They traced him through Binance.

nabla9 2y ago

Statement is correct. Monero remains technically untraceable, not in practice. Money must go in and out to be useful and it can be traced. They payment was made into bitcoin address, then transferred into Monero, then it was sent into another Monero wallet. After that they used statistical analysis to determine the most likely receiver. All sections of the additional investigation report where KRP discloses its methods have been retracted. Details about the analysis of Monero traffic are not revealed.

Tiberium 2y ago
"Money must go in and out to be useful and it can be traced." - not if you pay directly in Monero.
- nabla9 2y ago
  When people start paying their toilet paper with Monero that becomes an issue.
  - jamil7 2y ago
    Are you arguing that the attacker would have to eventually exchange XMR for something they could purchase goods with, like toilet paper? Because I think that's shifting the original argument a little. The point being made is that had they had the victim(s) buy XMR on an exchange and send it directly to their XMR wallet and maybe cycle it through a few wallets, it would not have been traceable, which still holds true. How the attacker would actually use that money is a separate discussion. I've never looked into it but I'd guess there are illegal/grey services that would provide this service for a fee.
    - futuramaconarma 2y ago
      A few sites you can buy $500+ gift cards with them for low fee
    - nabla9 2y ago
      original argument: In this instance police was able to trace Modero payment trough with statistical analysis. Monero is technically safe, not necessarily in practice. >and maybe cycle it through a few wallets, Your argument: Monero + extra protocol is safe. The general pattern of these arguments: Argument: Technology X is not necessarily 100% safe. Counterargument: there exist way to use technology safely so it is.
      - nunobrito 2y ago
        Cycling through a few wallets is unnecessary, that is mostly applicable to bitcoin users trying to make their transactions harder to follow. In monero there is privacy on each transaction. Of course it isn't complicated to match public transactions if you transfer 100k EUR from binance to monero and then magically 99k EUR are credited into your personal bank account within 1~2 days. Finland is a small country, deposits from bank accounts related to crypto exchanges are easy to find. Not even monero could save a person with such awful practices.
      - jamil7 2y ago
        You may or may not be correct that Monero is not untraceable but this example doesn't prove or disprove anything because the transaction wasn't entirely in Monero. Your argument seems to be about the traceability of the whole extortion process rather than the tech, which I think everyone agrees leaves a lot of room for error.
  - nunobrito 2y ago
    If the person would have made 2~3 payments to his account with different values or waited a year, binance records wouldn't look so suspicious. In fact, why the heck was that dumb guy even using binance to begin with. Anyways, you can pay toilet paper with monero quite OK. Just convert some value into a government-approved currency like bitcoin or BNB and buy stuff with a mastercard at grocery stores.
  - zigararu 2y ago
    Easily possible, here for example: https://shopinbit.com/Toilet-Roll-Seda-PH-Neutro-Foxy-6-uds/23-S7908615 https://shopinbit.com/Toilet-Roll-Seda-PH-Neutro-Foxy-6-uds/...
nunobrito 2y ago
Fortunately it was an incredibly inexperienced criminal. There are details about the Monero analysis, it is written on the report they lost track of the money when it got sent to a monero wallet. How it was guessed: "KRP claims that by employing heuristic analysis involving educated guesses based on patterns and probabilities, they could infer the most likely path of the funds. The small amount, together with other funds, possibly from victim payments, was sent to a second Bitcoin address linked to the same email address, which was later found to be linked to an email server managed by Kivimäki." There isn't much magic here. In a small country is fairly easy to spot anomalies across bank accounts. That's it.
ruthmarx 2y ago
> Statement is correct. No, it wasn't, and please admit that. You claimed law enforcement traced the attacker through Monero. They didn't. They couldn't. They traced him through Binance.